Page 53 of Amaros
Chapter Twenty-Seven
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AMAROS COULD FEEL CAMRIEL’Sdisapproval as he took the long, winding, steep road back to their base.His second disagreed with his decision not to tell the females about their bonds.The blond knight didn’t feel drawn to Zoe or Grace so far.He could sense something was different about his leader.He would keep the bond a secret, but he wasn’t happy about it.
“I wonder if the crazy prophet is on the radio,” Grace said.
It was fully dark now and Amaros had turned the headlights on.He drove around fallen rocks, then switched the radio on.Instead of static, a voice came through the speakers.
“Mark my words, boys and girls,” the madman was ranting.“True evil is coming to New York.It’ll be here any day now.It’ll worm its way into the rotting carcass of our once great nation and lay eggs inside its flesh.It’ll spawn an army of rats that will devour everyone in sight.If you thought the Rapture was bad, this will be far, far worse.”
He stopped speaking and static took over again.
“Yeah, he’s nuts,” Camriel agreed, then switched the radio off.
Amaros turned another bend and increased his speed.He was about to respond when a deer bounded onto the road.Not even his reflexes were good enough to avoid colliding with the animal.
“Bambi!”Grace shrieked in horror when the truck shuddered from the impact.Amaros slammed on the brakes.
“I’ll check on it,” Camriel offered and climbed out.He stepped in front of the truck and shook his head.“What do you want me to do with it?”he asked.
“We should take it with us,” Zoe suggested, much to Grace’s horror.“There’s no point in wasting the meat and hide,” she pointed out.
“Ew,” the teen complained unhappily.“This feels so wrong.”
“It’s an adult doe, not a fawn,” Zoe told her.
“She’s Bambi’s mom, then,” Grace said sulkily.Camriel heaved the animal over his shoulder, then placed it on the tarp in the back of the truck.“It’s squashing my books,” Grace complained.
“They’ll be fine,” Amaros said, then took off as soon as his second climbed back inside.“I’d be more worried about the storm ruining them,” he added.
Lightning flickered and they heard the distant rumble of thunder.“It looks like another doozy,” Zoe said.
“I don’t remember storms like this when we were here previously,” Amaros said.
“You weren’t here during the end times,” Zoe said.“We’ve had wars, famine, pestilence and all kinds of apocalyptic weather phenomena for years.”
“They used to say they were once in a hundred-year storms and floods,” Grace recalled.“Then they became once in a thousand-year weather events.”
“In the end, there were deadly and destructive storms in every country nearly every day,” Zoe said sadly.“They seem to have stopped since the First Resurrection.”
“The what?”Camriel asked.
“That’s what my church Pastor called the Rapture,” she explained.“Now that God has taken all the good people and has punished us sinners, it looks like the weather is returning to normal.”
“It’s about time,” Grace said as Amaros slowed down to turn into their property.“It was getting old seeing fires, floods, tornadoes and every other type of natural disasters on the news.”
“Now we don’t have any news,” Zoe said.“We just have a crazy prophet ranting on the radio.”
“At least we’ve got plenty of books to read,” Grace said, perking up a bit.